By David Beaumont, PhD

The nature of the military threats that Australia now faces are not ones that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) can, nor should, face alone. Instead, as history shows of all wars, military threats to the nation are only deterred, if not defeated, through a whole-of-nation venture.  This is because few militaries – especially those with a defensive mandate or posture – are ever built to sustain operations over protracted periods. Indeed, the ADF’s relationship with the economy that supports it is one of necessary dependency. To do otherwise would be so economically ruinous that the direction of precious national resources to prefer the military over social and economic needs could very well damage civil preparedness and resilience over the long run.

It is because of the ADF’s dependency on national resources, financial or not, that a cohesive approach to broader national preparedness contributes can be seen to be a strategic advantage. When Australia’s military is called upon to defend national interests, it only can because it has the backing of a society and economy that is ready and responsive to needs that may change with the strategic situation. This society and economy must be prepared, for wars are rarely won as quickly as is hoped, and the victor must always be prepared to preserve the peace. As Cathal Nolan says, and I often quote, ‘[w]inning the day of battle is not enough. You need to win the campaign, then the year, then the decade.’[1]

A nation’s ability to win a war but also to maintain the peace afterwards depends on its capacity to reach its full potential under challenging circumstances. These circumstances will likely surpass what is perceived as normal – but ultimately peacetime – systems, process and behaviours that currently define national crisis management approaches. Moreover, they will not be solved by pumping more money into Defence capability programs at the expense of other military logistics and resilience initiatives.

Preparing for such scenarios starts with education and awareness, and strengthening resilience is achieved by implementing systems that mobilise national resources effectively during conflict. If the national support base – those national and international resources that the ADF draws upon during its operations – is prepared and resilient, it will be better able to adapt and respond to what could be increasing demands during a conflict. It is, naturally, important that at a time of peace we look to improving such preparedness – not because we think a conflict is imminent, but because it is always prudent to do so.

This article, along with those that follow, focuses on the topic of conflict and, more importantly, examines what conflict means for the nation that underpins the success of Australia’s military operations. While the concepts of preparedness and resilience are often standard concerns for military organisations, these issues are less commonly considered by the broader Australian society.

The 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS24) highlights that the risk of Australia becoming involved in a conflict is rising. We all know that NDS24, and a preceding review, introduced the concept of National Defence to highlight that a resilient and prepared national support base is now vital to Australia’s security. This approach acknowledges that if Australia is faced with conflict, it is essential for the country to be ready to respond with a credible military force.

Before exploring the implications of NDS24’s conclusions about conflict, this article starts the broader analysis with a few general ideas about conflict, and the role of the national support base within it. Accordingly, it provides four non-exhaustive considerations that should shape any analysis of the civil-military circumstances necessary for the nation to be able to successfully face off a threat.

Consideration one – conflicts appear quicker than we think, and last longer than we hope

As highlighted in the NDS24, the idea of strategic warning time is all but defunct. It is worth repeating statistics I have used before to hint at why this may be the case – an Australian analysis of twentieth-century conflicts since 1939 revealed that, on average, the time from the first sign of war to the initial hostilities is about 14.3 months; for smaller incidents, this drops to around 10.6 months, with a 50% chance that conflict could break out in under four months. This is well short of long-held assumptions that have governed national preparedness models over the past forty or so years. There is no shortage of contemporary reminders about how quickly disputes can lead to conflict, and how quickly a nation can launch a war well before others consider it likely.

Alarming statistics and observations aside, there is always time available to enhance the preparedness of all elements of national strength from which any military effort will be drawn. But it must be said that large scale investments in national capability and capacity are tremendously expensive and take time to deliver. For example, the AUKUS Submarine program involves the establishment of industry capability that has never existed in Australia before, delivered over a multi-decade timeframe.  It is therefore crucial that national capabilities and capacities are attuned to the increased likelihood that conflict could come well in advance of any assumption-based timeline.

Consideration two – the resilience of the national support base to conflict is as important as its preparedness

Warfare rarely follows a clear or predictable path. Progress fluctuates as opposing sides utilise their strengths, address weaknesses, and respond to each other’s action. This means that the national resources needed to sustain a military operation can vary depending on time, place (or force posture requirements), and purpose. But it also makes it difficult to ready the national support base for every conceivable scenario or risk. It is rare to find examples of militaries truly logistically ready for the conflicts that they face, and the same could be said of the nation that keeps such militaries sustained.

At a time where the term ‘resilience’ sometimes seems to be a euphemism for adaptability at a time of ‘under-preparedness’, we can be forgiven for thinking there is little that can be done before a conflict. It is important to remember, however, that ‘resilience’ can be built prior to a conflict, and true adaptability come from having systems established in place to allow the nation to prioritise the resources it has to achieve the best effect. In a conflict where there is a likely to be a relative difference in terms of the national power that can be brought to bear —diplomatic, informational, military, and economic— any capacity to redirect resources to where they are most needed becomes a strategic advantage.

Consideration three – military success always depends upon civil-military industry integration

Australia’s experiences in both World Wars are usually cited in demonstrating how the mobilisation of economic resources toward military goals becomes necessary in major conflicts. The capacity to direct industry and national output to wartime needs is clearly necessary to sustain forces across multiple fronts and vast distances. It is, however, important to recognise that there is not a single military operation undertaken by the ADF without some form of industrial backing.

My own research covers Australia’s experiences with civil-military support relationships in the 1980s and 1990s and shows that even at this time of relative peace, ADF deployments were unpinned by national contributions. Nearly two decades of operations in the Middle-east since 2001 all but confirmed this tradition, but also the criticality in getting civil-military industry relationships right.

There is, however, an added reason for focussing upon industry integration. Today, Australia exists in a region where nations have prioritized civil-military integration for many years. China’s policy of military-civil fusion is the most famous, and purports to incorporate commercial innovations into the People’s Liberation Army, allowing for rapid scaling of their industrial base in conflict. The United States of America, has also embarked upon its own civil-military industrial efforts to realise its own full potential, as have Australia’s partners in North Asia. We are now in an age where industrial capacity can decide the outcome of conflicts, and it will be important that the nation is prepared accordingly.

Consideration Four – all military outcomes depend on prioritised, timely, national support

Conflict affects every nation, regardless of its size, geographical position, or the magnitude of warfare. Wars are not won by the best technology or thinking alone, but by those nations and militaries that are resilient, prepared and adaptable when their best attempts to predict the character of future conflict fall short. Economies and societies cannot avoid the consequences of the wars that their national militaries fight, and even the demands that a defensive effort might place will inevitably spread across all aspects of national life.  

In this environment, the national support challenge will not merely be to deliver supplies faster or cheaper, but to reimagine the entire architecture of military sustainment such that a military effort is not only sustained over protracted periods but leads to outcomes in which national objectives are met.

The approach to integrating military and civilian sectors, along with the management of national resources, varies significantly between times of competitive peace and periods of conflict. When a nation transitions into conflict, this integration becomes more robust and unified, demanding a coordinated national effort. Ukraine’s experience since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 serves as an example, demonstrating how a nation can exist in a continuous cycle, shifting between relative peace, crisis, and open conflict.

Addressing these considerations

There are many reasons to think that Australian society is at a juncture about how it thinks about national defence. The world is a dangerous place; emerging defence policy and national security strategies, including Australia’s own National Defence, have posed new challenges to national security enterprises around the world as a consequence. For Australia and its ADF, one of the most significant challenges to be faced is in the readying of military and civilian systems of integration to manage the demands of conflict. This is not about resolving the ADF’s dependency upon the nation for its operations; it is about ensuring that a well prepared and resilient national support base is available that can respond to the threats that Australia might face in the future.

This article has provided four considerations regarding whole-of-nation preparedness for conflict. They are by no means new ideas, but they are worth repeating in a way that the relationships between each area of consideration can be seen.  There real value, however, is as frames for viewing circumstances – circumstances that will be covered in the articles that follow.

[1] Nolan, C., The Allure of Battle, Oxford University Press, UK, 2019, p 4